'Polio-like' strain of enterovirus D68 may be responsible for mystery paralysis, study says
Source: Washington Post
To Your Health
By Ariana Eunjung Cha March 31 at 11:19 AM
Three-dimensional image of enterovirus D68 (center) reconstructed from cryo-electron micrographs.
Courtesy of Yue Liu and Michael Rossmann, Purdue University.
Genetic sequencing of a virus found in respiratory secretions of children in California and Colorado who suffered from paralysis or muscle weakness last fall reveals that they were infected with a mutated strain of enterovirus D68 that is closer to polio than other strains common in previous years.
The study, published Monday in Lancet Infectious Diseases, sheds new light on one of the most troubling medical mysteries of recent years. Amid a nationwide outbreak of severe respiratory illness, doctors at hospitals nationwide began to report that they were seeing an alarming number of children with unexplained weakness in an arm or a leg to complete paralysis that required them to be put on ventilators. Treating physicians noted that many of the children appeared to be infected with enterovirus D68, but researchers were cautious about drawing a causal link because virus had been bouncing around the world since the 1960s and had typically only caused breathing issues such as coughing and wheezing.
While the research does not provide a definitive link -- that would only be established if the virus were found in the spinal fluid and it was not -- it provides the strongest evidence to date of the link between enterovirus D68 and paralysis. The researchers theorize that the reason the virus was not found in the spinal fluid could be because the samples were taken too late. Scientists also tested the children for the presence of other pathogens capable of causing the symptoms but didn't find other viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites.
The new research reveals that the children had a novel strain of the virus, called B1, which emerged about four years ago. That strain has only five to six coding differences from previous strains that were commonly found in the United States but each of those are mutated in the direction of polio or another nerve-damaging virus known as EV-D70.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/link-found-between-children-with-paralysis-and-more-polio-like-strain-of-enterovirus-d68-study-says/2015/03/30/f13e3c18-8e08-4872-ba96-f0660709f8bd_story.html
Previously at DU:
Polio-Like Illness Causing Mystery Paralysis In Colorado Kids
= new reply since forum marked as read
- A Pentagram? Damn.
Good grief, who's writing these scripts???
K&R
